Law & Order: SVU, Thursday, February 16

Larissa Dubecki

One tends not to associate Law & Order with subtlety. Its modus operandi is to sledgehammer the viewer into assuming that behind even the most squeaky clean New Yorker there's a Hannibal Lecter or worse. Tonight, for instance, the Special Victim Unit's hard-working detectives are doorknocking known paedophiles before a crime has even been committed. Talk about loading the bases of expectation. A pair of out-of-towners arrive in Manhattan on Halloween Eve. Their car, with infant on board, is stolen outside a convenience store but from the outset the behaviour of the distressed parents raises suspicions. So accustomed are we to the parade of psychopaths that Law & Order produces with such clockwork regularity that a story such as tonight's leaves us feeling genuinely surprised and moved.